This is a JUST RIGHT kind of book. Just the right size; just the right tone; just the right scope of experience/adventure for the audience.

How does Lauren Castillo accomplish this just-rightness in the art?

1) Through the use of color. In the beginning she communicates the noise and smells and sheer overwhelming-ness of the big city through dark colors: watercolor washes of browns and black charcoal-like shading. Bright yellow and greens communicate bustle and action. The lack of color (on the page where Nana and the boy first approach Nana's apartment building) communicates sterility and the intimidating feeling of those tall looming buildings. And of course the use of red throughout the book is absolutely perfect. From the start, touches of red focus our attention: the numeral 1 on the subway; the policeman's stop sign; the teapot and teacup. Nana knits the boy a red cape to make him brave, but observers will note that Nana is also outfitted in red, from her hatband to her handbag to her boots. There's a natural and built-in connection forged between adult and child here. And there's a point of discussion: is there an implication that Nana might need help being brave as well?

2) Through her ability to convey the sense of a large city in a book with quite a small trim size. (Which I love, by the way. The small size and square shape of the book communicates safety, harmony, manageability. The story would have been dwarfed in one of those oversize celebrate-the-city kind of picture books.) Castillo's story is a small one, but it doesn't happen in isolation. The presence of the city is always there in the background, in black-and-white sketched-in cityscapes (that look almost like coloring-books pages before they're colored in) or less-detailed blocked-out buildings; she gives us the whole city without taking our focus off the characters and the main action. (She uses the same technique in other places in the book as well: note Nana sitting on her coach as she begins to knit the boy his red cape. The sofa is only sketched in, like the cityscapes, keeping our attention solely on Nana and her knitting.)

3) Through the tactile quality of the art. The combination of the watercolor and what looks to be some kind of charcoal rubbing (but might be something entirely different; I'm just guessing!) gives the art such texture and immediacy.

I have to admit I'm a leetle disappointed in the endpapers. I thought they might have changed from green (in the beginning) to red (at the end), just like Nana's two knitting projects. But I am sure the illustrator and publisher gave much thought to it. So please help me with this (admittedly) tiny little quibble.

This book is not a shouter. It's a small domestic story, with a quiet narrative arc, for very young children. Therefore, given the history of this award, it doesn't scream Caldecott. What will be its chances on the table at the end of this month?